Republican Sen. George Allen today conceded defeat to Democrat James Webb, guaranteeing that Democrats will control the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives when the new Congress convenes in January.
In his concession, Allen said the "owners of government have spoken and I respect their decision.'
"The Bible teaches us there is a time and place for everything," he added. "And today I called and congratulated Jim Webb.'
The question now: Where does that leave the pro-family movement?
On his national radio broadcast today, Focus on the Family Action Chairman Dr. James Dobson said he rejects the idea that the change in Congress somehow represents an end of the pro-family agenda.
"The way that it is being spun by the media and even by some Republicans is that this is a rejection by the American people of the pro-family agenda, the values-voters' perspective,' " he said. "That is simply not true."
Dr. Dobson said some Democrats won Tuesday by embracing some of the values held by voters — at least in their rhetoric, but many Republicans walked away from their conservative base. Worse, some Republicans now want the party to sprint as far as it can from values voters.
"Sen. Arlen Specter, who is very, very liberal in his perspective, said there will have to be a 'fundamental re-evaluation' of what's going on Iraq," Dobson noted. "And the party will have to become 'a lot more progressive and a lot less ideological.'
"Guess who they have in mind here? It's the values voters. They say, 'What we need to do is get rid of this base, because they are causing us problems.' "
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said what Tuesday night really demonstrated is that Americans continue to embrace pro-family issues. Of eight marriage-protection amendments on the ballot, seven passed by an average of 70 percent. Arizona's appears to be a narrow loss — although votes are still being counted there.
"You watched the returns, how many candidates got 70 percent of voter approval?" Perkins asked. "These amendments, these issues, are things that people care about, and these are a better gauge of the values of a nation than partisan politics."
Other family advocates share that perspective, including the Rev. Robert Sirico, director of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.
"There is a sense in which the Republicans had it coming," Sirico told CitizenLink. "When you lose your identity, when you induce people to vote for you for a strong moral agenda and then become anemic about speaking about moral issues, it should come as no surprise that the constituency you developed under the one message is dissipated under the second."
Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told Dr. Dobson that he never again wants to hear Christians say their votes don't matter.
"Of the 29 House seats that have switched parties, 22 of them were settled by less than 2 percent of the vote," Bauer said, "and in Virginia and Montana, where the Senate seats changed to the Democratic Party, the total of the margin in those two states is 8,500 votes.
"Eight-thousand five-hundred votes (determined) that (Republicans) no longer control the Senate Judiciary Committee — and that, unfortunately, may stop us from getting another pro-life justice that can overturn Roe v. Wade."
What will the change mean for those in the trenches — engaged in championing the pro-family agenda? Plenty, according to Amanda Banks, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action.
"Our work now changes very much from an offensive posture to a defensive posture," she said.
Minimizing losses and working to preserve victories which have already been won will likely top the list of jobs.
"We have to work, for instance, to ensure that the Congress will not overturn the president's veto of the embryonic stem-cell legislation that passed both houses of Congress," Banks said. "We have to continue to advocate for a ban on human cloning — and to protect the partial-birth abortion ban, which is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court."
Reaching out to Democratic leaders and new members of Congress will also be important tasks, she added.
The message for the grassroots pro-family movement is simple — "Don't be discouraged. Press on."
"We're not going away," Bauer said. "We're going to continue to fight for every child to be part of the American family, to have a place at the table, to be welcomed into the world, protected by our Constitution.
"We're going to fight to defend marriage, we're going to make sure religious liberty is preserved, and we need you out there in America to pick yourself off the floor, shake yourself off, remember what our Christian brothers and sisters have done through the centuries to fight evil. We all need to rededicate ourselves, not to a particular party, but to a set of values and moral beliefs that are the only hope that this great country has."
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Click here to read Dr. Dobson's statement concerning the election.
Click here to listen to today's Focus on the Family broadcast online.
